A job in a 1920s house in Tacoma made me rethink how I look at floors

I was pulling up the old carpet in a living room last month, expecting the usual plywood subfloor. Instead, I found these beautiful, wide plank pine boards, still in great shape under decades of dust. The homeowner had no idea they were there. We ended up just cleaning and sealing them instead of installing new carpet. It made me stop and look at every floor differently now, even before I start a job. Has anyone else found a hidden gem like that under an old carpet?

3 comments

3 Comments

troyp372mo ago

Ever find anything good under linoleum? I pulled some up in my kitchen and the original tile was still perfect, just needed a good scrub.

tylerr292mo ago

Found a layer of old newspapers from 1968 under mine. The headlines were wild, talking about the price of gas going up to 34 cents a gallon. Spent more time reading than cleaning. That paper was in better shape than the subfloor.

elizabeth_gonzalez1mo ago

That old newspaper paper quality really was something else. The stuff they printed on back then could last decades if it stayed dry, while today's newsprint turns to dust in your hands after a week. Kind of makes you wonder what we're leaving behind for future generations to find under their floors, probably just phone screenshots of memes printed on receipt paper. My grandma had a stack of 1950s newspapers in her attic and they were still perfectly readable, you could feel the weight and texture difference compared to modern stuff. Just goes to show they built things to last back then, even the stuff they expected people to throw away.